Firmware/Hardware compatibility with large USB drives

[platzbr 0]

With some small experimentation, I have noticed that my 8GB USB Drives (FAT32) seem to work fine with the S5, but larger 256GB flash drives (exFAT or NTFS) do not get recognized. 

 

Is this a hardware or firmware limitation? Possible future compatibility update?

 

(We are not allowed to use externally supplied USB drives or ethernet communications)

[gr5 2,194]

I'm not certain but I think the answer is 32GB.  I read that the BBB can only read up to 32GB uSD cards so I figure maybe the S5 (which doesn't use BBB but maybe for the same reason) can also only go up to 32GB.  Something happens there maybe.

 

Also 4GB can be addressed by 32 bits so that limit would make sense but I doubt that's the limit.  I'm going to guess 32GB.

 

[platzbr 0]

Formatted the large flash drive as NTFS, shrank the volume by 8GB, formatted to FAT32. 

 

FAT32 partition is now recognized on the drive. Ill play with different sizes, but good progress and fairly easy to do

[sj3fk3 22]

On 5/21/2021 at 1:34 AM, platzbr said:

With some small experimentation, I have noticed that my 8GB USB Drives (FAT32) seem to work fine with the S5, but larger 256GB flash drives (exFAT or NTFS) do not get recognized. 

 

Is this a hardware or firmware limitation? Possible future compatibility update?

 

(We are not allowed to use externally supplied USB drives or ethernet communications)

 

I don't think the size is the limit, but the file system is. The printers are Linux based and Linux does not really have very good support for NTFS. FAT32 can be as big as 8TB? So why not just try big partitions with FAT32?

[platzbr 0]

On 5/26/2021 at 10:10 AM, sj3fk3 said:

 

I don't think the size is the limit, but the file system is. The printers are Linux based and Linux does not really have very good support for NTFS. FAT32 can be as big as 8TB? So why not just try big partitions with FAT32?

I think that would work, but there isnt a super easy way (without other software) to format them in Win10 (i had to do something in PowerShell)

[sj3fk3 22]

On 5/27/2021 at 7:43 PM, platzbr said:

I think that would work, but there isnt a super easy way (without other software) to format them in Win10 (i had to do something in PowerShell)

 

Personally I have not used windows since '95, so I am afraid I'm the wrong person to ask this 😉